The Enabling Pillars Corrected link from
a couple of days ago. This report a studies of policies for
information and communication technologies (ICT) in
education and training in Australian education systems and
agencies. By Peter Kearns and John Grant, Department of
Education, Science and Training, May, 2002
[Refer][Research][Reflect]

The Questionable Value of Face Time Just
a little something to remind me of yesterday's trip through
the ice storm. One thing I forgot to mention: as we hovered
over Halifax waiting for landing clearance that never came,
the ice accumulating on the aircraft would from time to
time dislodge and be flung by the propellers into the
fuselage with a loud bang. So that's one bit of advice this
article leaves out: don't fly in an ice storm. Period. By
Denise Ruterbories, IBM DeveloperWorks, February, 2003
[Refer][Research][Reflect]

Patent Scare Hits Streaming Industry Yet
another patent shakedown is underway, this time by a small
company called Acacia which claims to hold the patent for
streaming media over the internet. "It's extortion," Roe
said. "It's just another example of someone seeking to
extend patents for an old technology to...cover completely
new technology. It's absurd." What really bother me is that
companies pay these people; Radio Free Virgin, for example,
decided it was cheaper to pay than to fight. Oh, and in
case you think Acacia is simply defending its rights to
things it invented, think again. The company simply sought
out and acquired patents it thought could be enforced. Oh
yeah, we can see that the creative people at Acacia were
really inspired to creativity by IP legislation. By John
Borland, CNet, February 6, 2003
[Refer][Research][Reflect]

Deploying the Next-Generation Enterprise
Portal If you are still interested in portals, this
article provides a good guide to planning and rolling out a
centralized portal. But you may want to rethink this: "The
successfully deployed enterprise portal will be the single
entry point for collaboration, information dissemination
and communication, application functionality and
interactive capabilities within and without the corporate
entity." I simply don't agree. Think multiple channels,
multiple tools, each one geared to a specific purpose, a
special type of information, or a particular community
(which may or may not be bounded by the enterprise). By
Jamie Barrette, DM Review Magazine, February, 2003
[Refer][Research][Reflect]

elearningeuropa.info Jeswein wrote me
this morning to let me know that the European commissioner
for education and culture, Viviane Reding, launched the
elearningeuropa.info portal at the Learntec 2003 conference
in Karlsruhe (Germany) a couple of days ago. According to
the website, "Reding welcomed the new portal 'as part of
the European efforts to improve the exchange of information
and the sharing of knowledge on e-learning in Europe'. As
the commissioner reminded, the purpose of the portal is 'to
act as a virtual meeting place and directory of information
for all aspects of e-learning. The young and the old, the
expert and the novice are invited to use the portal to
explore the world of e- learning and to gain access to the
considerable work that is already going on throughout
Europe.'" By Various Authors, elearningeuropa.info,
February 4, 2003
[Refer][Research][Reflect]

Propaganda Has a New Name - Encyclopedia
Britannica The Encyclopedia Britannica is widely used
in education. But what if it is trumpeting a specific
political message? That is the argument presented in this
article as the author surveys a number of listings and
concludes, "When (the CD and DVD version of) Britannica
discusses anything that is liberal, they spend half the
article criticizing and refuting it. When conservative
causes are presented, there is usually not such a two-sided
presentation. There is no critique of the conservative
worldview and its inadequacies." Some of the items are
telling. When we search for 'liberalism,' for example, we
ae taken to an article from the National Review which
asserts that liberals cannot deal with terrorism. The term
'altruism' is described as a failed philosophy. Based on
this item, I certainly think that the editors of the
Encyclopedia should be called to account. Teachers,
meanwhile, may want to consider affixing warning labels to
the disk. By William Du Bois, MyMac.Com, February 5, 2003
[Refer][Research][Reflect]

DSpace: An Open Source Dynamic Digital
Repository The best article yet on MIT Libraries'
DSpace implementation, including some good graphics that
clearly illustrate the system's functionality and
structure. DSpace, for those of you who are new to the
idea, is "a repository for the digital research and
educational material produced by members of a research
university or organization." By MacKenzie Smith, Mary
Barton, Mick Bass, Margret Branschofsky, Greg McClellan,
Dave Stuve, Robert Tansley, and Julie Harford Walker, D-Lib
Magazine, January, 2003
[Refer][Research][Reflect]

Innovation Nice, brisk article on how to
foster innovation. Innovation is about change, and
innovators can be irritating, so an organization needs to
create room for it, a space where new ideas can grow. The
article also discusses some features of innovation,
including my favorite: "complexity is not a mark of
innovation. Most often the ideas fall into 'why hasn't
anyone else thought of this' category." By George Siemens,
elearnspace, February 3, 2003
[Refer][Research][Reflect]

The Future of Online Search Report on a
survey that classifies search engine users into five
groups: discoverers, viewers, writers, readers and
technodoers. The survey reports a surprisingly low success
rate overall: only 25 percent of searches yield a usable
result. But the most telling comment is this: "People
clearly do not want to search - people simply do not wake
up in the morning looking forward to searching on Google.
People want to get other things done where search is an
activity that is required to get there. If people had other
more convenient ways of getting there, they would use those
methods." For those of you who think that the future of
online learning will look like a search portal, read this
story, and think again. By Microdoc, Kairosnews, January
29, 2003
[Refer][Research][Reflect]